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06 April 2013

Cemeteries Part 15: Christians and Pagans

... stretching the cemeteries
concept a bit ...

Sousse medina

Artifacts in the Kasbah Museum in the
town of Sousse, Tunisia, had me gaping in astonishment. Sousse is one
of Tunisia's Mediterranean coastal towns existing since eons BC. It
became a thriving Phoenician (aka Carthaginian) trading post and then
an indispensable port into the Roman province of "Africa."
It was attacked by Vandals and Berbers and occupied by the Byzantines
before the 9th century Arab conquest. The mediaeval walls of the
Sousse medina, a World Heritage site, were built for protection
against further waves of attack by Normans, Ottomans, Spaniards, and
French. Today they enclose a vibrant life that seems little changed
since then. The only minor damage sustained in five hundred years
occurred during a sea bombardment during the Second World War.

Sousse was home to early Christians
whom the Romans originally oppressed and persecuted. As in other
parts of the empire, Christians resorted to burying their dead in
underground catacombs away from the eyes of authority. They were by
no means the first to employ this practice; remains and items of the
Carthaginians preceded them, and probably others. Outside the walls
are fifteen kilometres of catacomb tunnels with something like 15,000
burials. Rediscovered in the 19th century, only a tiny portion has
been excavated and restored.

Sousse medina, kasbah wall

The splendid museum is located in the
kasbah, high in a strategic corner of the medina walls befitting its
first function as a military fortress. The kasbah itself is
beautifully designed and proportioned, and the museum architecturally
complements it to dramatic effect. Highlights are the spectacular
mosaics created as
floor decorations in the Roman homes of Sousse, then called
Hadrumetum. They are displayed vertically for best (overwhelming,
actually) effect, many of them room-size, some in fragments. Greek
and Roman mythology are the main artistic themes, with occasional
scenes of hunting, fishing, and daily life.

A poor shot of a smaller masterpiece

Roman baptismal font

Most
stunning of all: what looks like a typical Roman communal bath, with
incredibly beautiful mosaics, is a 6th-century
Christian immersion baptismal font. The Latin inscribed around the
edge is Gloria in excelsis deo, et in terra pax [h]ominibus bone,
bolum[itatus l]audamus te (glory to God in the highest and peace
on earth to men of good will, we praise Thee).

But
to the point: the museum also exhibits a number of fascinating
funerary and burial-related objects from the catacombs. Viewing
marble epitaphs for
Byzantine Christians of the 4th century was awesome enough but some
of the pagan Roman stelae date back to the 1st century AD. Most of
them commend the departed to the household gods (dis
manibus sacrum - DSM)
so containers and food for a meal were deposited with them. A stela
usually gives the person's name, age, parents, status, and name of
the person who erected the stone. The date of death does not seem to
be the norm!

This
one for Felicita is explained:

In
this one for Demetrius, we can see a dedication to the goddess
Aphrodite:

What amazed me was the antiquity of the
stones and that the inscriptions could have survived so long―we
are accustomed to most cemetery markers being worn away by weather
elements after a few hundred years. Being "stored"
underground likely helped preserve them. Time at the Kasbah Museum
was priceless, worth getting lost trying to find it through the
twisting medina alleys and steep climbs!